John Lyly | Page 3

These
are the three chief points of interest about Lyly, but they do not exhaust
the problems he presents. We shall have to notice also that as a
pamphleteer he becomes entangled in the famous Marprelate
controversy, and that he was one of the first, being perhaps even earlier
than Marlowe, to perceive the value of blank verse for dramatic
purposes. Finally, as we have seen, he was the reputed author of some
delightful lyrics.
The man of whom one can say such things, the man who showed such
versatility and range of expression, the man who took the world by
storm and made euphuism the fashion at court before he was well out
of his nonage, who for years provided the great Queen with food for
laughter, and who was connected with the first ominous outburst of the
Puritan spirit, surely possesses personal attractions apart from any
literary considerations. We shall presently see reason to believe that his
personality was a brilliant and fascinating one. But such a
reconstruction of the artist[2] is only possible after a thorough analysis
of his works. It would be as well here, however, by way of obtaining an
historical framework for our study, to give a brief account of his life as
it is known to us.
[2] Cf. Hennequin.
"Eloquent and witty" John Lyly first saw light in the year 1553 or

1554[3]. Anthony à Wood, the 17th century author of Athenae
Oxonienses, tells us that he was, like his contemporary Stephen Gosson,
a Kentish man born[4]; and with this clue to help them both Mr Bond
and Mr Baker are inclined to accept much of the story of Fidus as
autobiographical[5]. If their inference be correct, our author would
seem to have been the son of middle-class, but well-to-do, parents. But
it is with his residence at Oxford that any authentic account of his life
must begin, and even then our information is very meagre. Wood tells
us that he "became a student in Magdalen College in the beginning of
1569, aged 16 or thereabouts." "And since," adds Mr Bond, "in 1574 he
describes himself as Burleigh's alumnus, and owns obligations to him,
it is possible that he owed his university career to Burleigh's
assistance[6]." And yet, limited as our knowledge is, it is possible, I
think, to form a fairly accurate conception of Lyly's manner of life at
Oxford, if we are bold enough to read between the lines of the scraps of
contemporary evidence that have come down to us. Lyly himself tells
us that he left Oxford for three years not long after his arrival.
"Oxford," he says, "seemed to weane me before she brought me forth,
and to give me boanes to gnawe, before I could get the teate to suck.
Wherein she played the nice mother in sending me into the countrie to
nurse, where I tyred at a drie breast for three years and was at last
inforced to weane myself." Mr Bond, influenced by the high moral tone
of Euphues, which, as we shall see, was merely a traditional literary
prose borrowed from the moral court treatise, is anxious to vindicate
Lyly from all charges of lawlessness, and refuses to admit that the
foregoing words refer to rustication[7]. Lyly's enforced absence he
holds was due to the plague which broke out at Oxford at this time.
Such an interpretation seems to me to be sufficiently disposed of by the
fact that the plague in question did not break out until 1571[8], while
Lyly's words must refer to a departure (at the very latest) in 1570.
Everything, in fact, goes to show that he was out of favour with the
University authorities. In the first place he seems to have paid small
attention to his regular studies. To quote Wood again, he was "always
averse to the crabbed studies of Logic and Philosophy. For so it was
that his genie, being naturally bent to the pleasant paths of poetry (as if
Apollo had given to him a wreath of his own Bays without snatching or
struggling), did in a manner neglect academical studies, yet not so

much but that he took the Degree in Arts, that of Master being
completed in 1575[9]."
[3] Bond, I. p. 2; Baker, p. v.
[4] Ath. Ox. (ed. Bliss), I. p. 676.
[5] Euphues, p. 268.
[6] Bond, I. p. 6. But Baker, pp. vii, viii, would seem to disagree with
this.
[7] Bond, I. p. 11.
[8] Baker, p. xii.
[9] Athenae Oxonienses (ed. Bliss), I. p. 676.
Neglect of the recognised studies, however, was not the only blot upon
Lyly's Oxford life. From the hints thrown out by his contemporaries,
and from some allusions, doubtless personal, in the Euphues, we learn
that, as an undergraduate, he was an irresponsible